A short prologue! This section was mostly written back in 2016 so forgive the writing style if it's a bit different. Thanks for reading! Comments and questions welcome
Snow fell lightly, forming soft clouds of yellow sparks where the street lamps shone. The clouds weren't the opaque violet of a true winter's night; instead, above the roofs of the town, it was the darkest shade of blue imaginable.
The roofs were tile and cardboard, wood and canvas. Whatever the owners could afford to hang across the plastered houses, to block out the snow, the snow, the snow, the snow…
Kanda breathed out slowly, watching the moisture freeze into another cloud. It was cold. Not enough to make a difference. And the snow slid in and out, in and out of—of focus?
His eyelids slipped down, slowly, like the blood now congealing on the side of his head.
No!
No. Don't sleep. No no no. Don't get caught out.
His eyes flew open, though the left one flickered like a candle's flame.
The alley where he wasn't moving led up a few feet in front of him, ending in the street. It had to be paved with snow between rows of cramped shops and dying drunks. A fresh coat. The glowing light at the alley's entrance made everything past it hard to see.
Even what he could see was blurred and blurred more as snowflakes caught in his lashes.
There was one street lamp here. The pool of light cast around its wrought-iron base stopped just short of his reaching fingers.
No one would find him here.
A breeze was picking up. Narrow passages channeled the wind when it blew right. This one was all empty except for him and the frozen garbage heap. Must have been where they dragged them all, once they stopped moving.
Kanda shifted position, and the skiff of snowflakes resting on his coat folded with the fabric. It had been warm. Even comforting, sometimes. It was torn up, n—
—ow!—
—w.
Kanda knew a quick jab to one of his injuries would wake him up. If only he could move his hands. This body was healing, but the cold washed him with an overwhelming urge to sleep.
Daisya would wait for him. He could go back in the morning.
Around him, the smears of a dark red marred the snow. Still wet. Kanda saw the light reflected off the blood that froze instead of drying.
It blurred for one last time as his eyelids, heavy with snowflakes, fell.
There was a smile.
Jagged teeth in a broad and grinning mouth, pushing aside the curving marks on each cheek. The one he saw every moment that he wasn't in his body.
Yuu!
Twenty-eight hours earlier…
This was a bigger town, still catching up with the wheels of industry. For Kanda and Daisya, it was another stop on the way back to the Order. Akuma and Innocence tended to crop up in more remote areas, where there were fewer people to find the Innocence, and where people cared for their dead enough to want them back.
"It's too cold," Daisya whined, "It's November. It should still be autumn. Chrissakes."
He rubbed his hands together, huffing on them, before he stuck them back in his pockets. Even his damn nose hairs were starting to freeze together.
"That's just because it's wet," Kanda replied.
"I know, I know."
The two of them trudged on, stomping the leftovers of last week's snowfall into the ground. A four-horse cart was stopped a ways ahead of them at the hut that marked the town's entrance. Ledgers were handed in and handed back. The new German regime that took over the fractured city-states in this part of the world was trying to catch them up in a hurry, and that meant strategies. Records. Organization. All the worst parts of life.
"Don't know what I'd do if they expected me to carry paperwork everywhere," Daisya commented. "If it didn't get blasted to hell, it'd be soaking wet before we even got here."
By the time they'd reached the hut, the cart had lurched off, starting along the bigger road to the right. That one was paved with flagstone. The other one was badly-done cobbles and probably tougher to drive on than a potato field.
"Papers."
The clerk was old, a bit tired-looking, Daisya decided. Maybe some guy who'd been a good worker in his day, who got shuffled out to the countryside because he couldn't keep up now. A border post in a quiet town would have been a good present to keep him out of trouble and off the street.
He'd know the rules.
Daisya pulled the left flap of his cloak aside right at the same time as Kanda, watching the old man's face fall. The Order's insignia had a certain kind of effect on people.
"Oh, very well," the clerk muttered, "Take the road on the left, unless you're in need of a livery."
He pointed to the narrower road, still bordered by stacked stone and brick buildings on both sides. Daisya wouldn't have been surprised if the townhouses were basically a wall for the city— they started where the hut ended, and flowed together around the town as far as he could tell. Neat. The place almost felt like an old castle.
"Thanks, gramps."
He threw a mock salute to the clerk, and started off after Kanda, who never bothered with that kind of small talk. The boy had been raised right. If it wasn't worth saying, he didn't say it. Every word out of his mouth was something to hang on to.
The sun had slipped below the horizon a mile or so back, so the bright lights of the streetlamps made both exorcists wince as they strolled under the gateway. There was a tight gauntlet of the wily and destitute on the main road, like there was wherever money passed by. A border town like this still saw enough trade come through while the railways were tied up with strategic stuff.
There were even some frilly façades left over from a richer time, but wooden stalls had sprung up wherever there was space to be had. Rotten fruit, suspicious sausages, a heap of sacks that could be just that, or maybe a body…
"Hey, lady…"
A grasping hand reached out at random into the throng. Nobody could tell what it aimed at unless you were paying attention. Daisya took it without even thinking about it and jammed the bones together.
"Hey—my hand! You're going to—"
The voice cut off quickly with a whimper.
"No broken fingers," Kanda told him, once they'd cleared that block. These things happened. It was the hair. His skinny shoulders didn't help it either.
"I know. Didn't want to start something," Daisya murmured.
Two kids—maybe about seven or eight years old—ran past hand in hand. Probably out to take the unbearable burden of wealth off of people who were too naïve to know what to do with it. This place didn't get tourists, so the stealing had to be a bit more obvious than what Daisya's family did with their shop.
He checked his pockets. Money, pencil, scrap paper, still there.
"What?" asked Kanda.
"Just making sure," Daisya said.
He grinned for a moment, then abandoned it to hang with his breath in the frosty air. Home wasn't painful to think about, anymore. It was years since he felt guilty.
Then he plunged a hand into Kanda's coat.
"Don't want to lose anything, yeah?"
"Fine," muttered Kanda.
They stepped faster from then on, him following Kanda's lead. They didn't get many sideways glances like he used to, when they were two kids travelling alone and people wondered what they were doing. He was broad enough, with sharp features and a rougher voice.
Then again, Kanda's growth spurt was kicking in late. Not to mention he wasn't covered in scars.
Antonina had been right. It was hard for people to stomach somebody who was.
The snow was starting to drift down again, and already the shadows were creeping up over the ground.
Antonina. There was someone he hadn't thought about in a while.
He rubbed his fingers again, then crossed his arms. Still cold. The heat wasn't anything he wanted to come back to, but the novelty of feeling your skin prickle was wearing off year by year.
"You know where we're headed?" he asked, "Don't think I've ever been through here before."
The walls and windows stretched as far as could be seen in the haze, with wooden boards nailed across every opening, and the tatted canvas awnings hung out into the streets, ends toothy and ragged. They'd seen better days.
"Wait five minutes," Kanda muttered, after a pause. He was tired. What's more, he was showing it. He hadn't even complained that much.
Somewhere off to the side, a door opened. Indicting shouting roared out of it with a warm draft as a wave of people emerged, pushing in the opposite direction. Kanda slipped through them easily. Daisya followed suit. The snow was swirling now. It blew right through his coat, and the night wasn't getting any warmer.
From the looks of the crowd, there'd been some kind of argument going on. Well, that wasn't their problem. Exorcists didn't deal with people's affairs. When they messed with gods or demons, then they came in.